Bloom
by HeyItsMJ
Summary: They all started out as little girls. But all little girls have to grow up. Drabble series
1. Ty Lee

**Oh drabbling, how I've missed thee…**

* * *

Having six sisters meant you never had to be alone.

There was always someone to play with, to laugh with, to share clothes with, to sleep with if you had a nightmare, to gossip with, to complain with, to ask for help. A steady support wall on all sides.

There was also always someone teasing you, pulling your hair, wearing your clothes, stealing your toys, telling on you, fighting with you, and bothering you out of your mind.

Her parents were of little to no help. Being a nobleman, her father was available only when he wasn't holed up in his office (which they were forbidden to enter), and their mother always redirected them to one nanny or another. She and her sisters were always fighting and squabbling and making up and giggling constantly, and gave their parents a daily headache.

She could see why. Sometimes, it seemed they shared _too_ much. She learned to read auras from her second-oldest sister. Her fourth-oldest sister had taught her to walk on her hands. She was packed into a room (that always seemed too small) with two of her other sisters. Her father, her mother, and the nannies went through at least five names before they called the girl the right one. They ate together, studied together, went out together…

She wanted something for _herself._

One day, they (together) went to a traveling circus show that was passing through. She was absorbed by the magic of it, the splendor of the show. Finally, a place where _she_ could shine.

She left a note, packed a bag, and joined the caravan the next night. The ringmaster was impressed by what she could do, and set her up for more lessons with the acrobats. She was given her own costume, and was promised that if she got good enough, she could even get her own act.

The show moved on. So did she.

But sometimes, late at night, in her own dressing room, in her own bed, she missed her sisters. Fighting and squabbling and making up and giggling and being _together._

Because without someone to be together with, Ty Lee was all alone.


	2. Mai

**I don't write these gals enough. Funny, as this is the character I most resemble :P**

* * *

She was so _bored._

Her legs ached from disuse, but she wouldn't dare stand to stretch them. Her mother had promised her a new set of books if she sat still through the dinner, and she intended to do just that. But it had been easier when at she at least had food to occupy her. Now the adults were just chatting, and her bedtime was still hours off.

She sighed through her nose, which she had learned to do when her father disapproved of the loud distraction it made when coming out of her mouth. A proper lady, as she was supposed to be, was polite and still and _silent._

Oh, how she wanted nothing more than to make noise.

A servant hustled by, carrying the dirty plates and utensils. She watched as a knife slipped out and clattered to the floor, narrowly missing her foot (proper ladies didn't flinch). She opened her mouth to draw the servant's attention, but remembered the rules, and by then the servant had already disappeared down the hall. The knife lay on the floor.

She studied it for a while, letting her thoughts wander while she examined the short handle and the shining blade with a smudge of sauce on the edge (that would certainly stain the carpet). It looked so out-of-place in the fine ballroom; even a little rebellious.

Proper ladies weren't rebellious. She _hated_ being a proper lady.

Slowly, she scooted the knife towards her with one foot while her mother wasn't watching closely, then slid it up her leg, and then when the coast looked clear, snatched it.

It wasn't one of the big cutting knives she had seen the cooks use, but a small serving knife that fit (if only a little bigger) into her hand.

She twirled it through her fingers. She tossed it a few times. She tried to throw and catch it with one hand.

She saw her mother turn, and shoved it up her sleeve.

With still a little bit of sauce on the blade, she decided to play a game. Which of the guests tonight would walk home with a rip in their finest clothes.

So when no one was watching, she tossed it.

She couldn't see where it had gone, in the tight group of nobles. But she could hear the sound it made as it landed.

_Chunk._

When the maid came to take her to bed, she spotted it when giving her father a kiss: a few feet from Lady Lu Lung, who spotted a sauce-colored stain on the train of her dress.

This was how she got by the following months of banquets. She found she could fit the table knives up her sleeve, in her shoes, and even tucked in her hair. She could hear the whistling sounds they made before they hit their targets. Her aim improved to where she could graze a few hairs from Governor Natzu's topknot, the knife landing perfectly into the wall behind him.

Her mother and father boasted of how good and obedient and a proper lady their daughter was to their friends, all the while Mai flicked knives left and right, just to entertain herself. Just to rebel. Just to make some noise.

_Shing_-chunk. _Shing_-chunk. _Shing_-chunk.


	3. Katara

**This one came out…interestingly. **

**Sorry for the delay, computer was acting up x)**

* * *

There was one day, just one day, when she didn't hope for the Avatar.

She hated him.

Her grandmother would have been appalled and furious had she spoke her thoughts aloud. Anyone would, to hear a small girl say such spiteful things. _Coward. Weak. Fearful._ But that day she believed in them more than the tales she had been taught all her life.

It was six months after her mother died, and she still had nightmares.

They'd start out with the memories. The ash that rained like snow. The soldiers punching her father, her father punching back. Running. A strange man in their tent.

Then the image would shift. She'd still be there, cowering frightfully at the tent flap, the solider glaring and her mother looking eerily calm, but there was someone else with her. He didn't really have an appearance, just a human-like shape with glowing blue eyes.

The Avatar.

She'd scream at him to help, to do something. He only watches. Time slows then. Her memories pushed her back outside to find her father, then back to the tent. Burned.

She wails and sobs and the Avatar only watches. She yells at him, anguished. _Why didn't you help? Why didn't you save her? Why didn't you stop this?_

So for that one day, she is determinedly bitter. If hope couldn't save her mother, it certainly couldn't save the world. One hundred years ago, had the Avatar done _something_, her family would be whole today. The tribe would be grand. There'd be no war. She'd be a real waterbender. _It's the Avatar fault. All his fault, that we have no hope._

That day, she isn't the only one aware of the time passed. At the fire that night, she watches in shock as her father breaks down crying. _Six months now…I could have saved her…_

The men gather around him. Expressing their sympathies. And she listens as they all speak of regret. That they should have done _something. _It confuses her: who's to blame now? Everyone? No one? Why did the war have to start? Why did her mother have to die?

The day ends. She realizes that pinning the blame on the Avatar won't solve anything. Couldn't have saved her mother.

After all, the Avatar has been long dead, too.

The next day, the once-spiteful girl chooses to grow up. Her family needed her. Her mother would have been proud of her.

Katara decided if the Avatar couldn't bring back hope, she would.


	4. Toph

**Gah, late again!**

**Most awesome flashback sequence in the series :D**

* * *

She sniffed as she tenderly fingered the cut. The rock had ripped right through her dress and dug a smarting circle into her knee. It was wet and sticky and hurt when she touched it.

It wasn't bad; she would gladly accept any amount of scraped knees if she were only out of the house. The house with hard walls and doors that made her head ache when she walked into them. She liked the grass and dirt of the garden better: open and soft.

But her mother didn't like it when she played in the garden. Her mother didn't like it when she ran into the walls. Her mother was only happy when she was in her room, safe.

That night was the first time she ran away.

She would be lying if she said she wasn't scared. She was terrified. Night turned the grass cold and brought out eerie sounds from the trees. Night made her nervous enough to jump when something small flew past her face. Night had twisted the world so that when she had only wanted to take the road out of town, she went down a wide, twisting road whose air grew mustier the farther she went.

She was _very_ terrified. And very lost.

The only thing she could hear was a low rumbling (that might have been her stomach), usually followed by series of crackles. She knew that sound. It was the sound rocks made they crunched together.

She wiped at her eyes with one sleeve and strained for the sound, the only familiar thing in her surroundings. Tiny pebbles building up and breaking down; it almost calmed her.

Until the rumbling and crackling grew to a symphony of smashes. Then rocks and dust and dirt all rained down on her as the ground shook and cracked under her feet.

There was warm, wet breath in her face.

If she was terrified before, she didn't know what in the world she was now.

Something slimy slicked over her head, sticking her bangs to her forehead. That's what her flying boar's tongue did when they played.

Something familiar.

She giggled, waggling her own tongue to say hello to the creature that smelled like tunnels. She heard and felt the rumbles as it turned, making its way through the earth. Ignoring the pain in her knee, she copied it, crawling through the debris. She listened as it moved the earth out of its way.

When she was found and brought home the next day, her mother noticed something different.

Toph didn't walk into walls anymore.


End file.
